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Year of the Pig, so we had a little bit of piggy, in the siu mai. These are made with ground potk, shrimp, and waterchestnut. Unfortunately, I had to use the thicker wonton wrappers, but it's really all about the filling, isn't it?
The War Teep / Potstickers are from Sobeys - Beef and Cabbage. Not bad!

These two items were served at our Chinese Pavilion a few years back, when we still had the Lieutenant Governor's Winter Festival. Our new LT. G decided she didn't want to lend her title to the 3 day event once she took office. 😯
We made over 2500 of each of these dim sum items for the 3-day festival, plus several other dishes. At that time, we had lots of new immigrants who were learning about volunteerism, and food was one area they excelled in. Now, no one wants to help...and we have retired from spearheading such events.

These made for a nice lunch, but supper will have to be later as we are full!

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Real merguez in Morocco has spices, chillies, harissa. Not red colouring, as told by the grilled meat shop's owner.

Smoke everywhere.

My partner and I visited Morocco this time last year. Whilst in the Medina in Fez we stopped by one of these stalls for lunch. We had the same guy grilling our food in the tiny space. The atmosphere was almost as great as the food.

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There's a new restaurant in Tucson that I was eager to try and my friend's birthday was the excuse to visit today for lunch. Fatman Kitchen has two chefs, one is Sichuan and one from Shaanxi. We ordered Xi'an Oil Splashing Noodles, Pork Belly with Garlic Sauce and Stir-Fried String Bean.

The wheat noodles are made fresh in-house and were delicious with lots of minced garlic, chili oil, bean sprouts. I believe they are sometimes called Biang Biang noodles and an interesting article with recipe and video here advises that the Chinese character for 'biang' is one of the most complex characters, requiring 42 to 71 strokes to fashion it.

But here is a copy of their menu (no website yet) and the characters don't look complex, so I guess they aren't actually calling them Biang Biang noodles here? @liuzhou, if you are inclined to help, can you advise? Thank you!

Edited to add: I also read this in the article, maybe that's the explanation. Is it literally "oil splashing noodles"?

Biang Biang noodles is also called You Po Che Mian (油泼扯面) which literally means “Oil pouring over hand-pulled noodles”. This name explains a particular method of seasoning “You Po”: place chilli flakes, chilli powder, ground Sichuan pepper, minced garlic and spring onion on top of the cooked noodles, then pour hot oil over. The heat immediately releases the full flavour of all the herbs and spices.

Noodles before mixing, lots of fresh minced garlic!

After mixing all that lovely topping into the noodles and oil. This dish is quite spicy, but in a very mouth-pleasing way. The noodles are huge and toothsome!

Sauteed beans with the option of adding some nice hot chilies to each bite. 🙂

And pork belly, served cold with cucumbers and more chili oil. Sorry, we had already made good progress on this dish before I remembered to take a photo.

The food was amazing and the price very reasonable. Leftovers went home with my friend. I really want to return here but need to remember to go early or late, as it fills up fast.

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But here is a copy of their menu (no website yet) and the characters don't look complex, so I guess they aren't actually calling them Biang Biang noodles here? @liuzhou, if you are inclined to help, can you advise? Thank you!

The dish on the menu is listed as "Xi'an Oil Splashing Noodles" which is a near-literal translation of the Chinese shown 西安油泼面 (xī ān yóu pō miàn). although I'd translate it as 'splash'. Although similar, I wouldn't say it is necessarily the same as "biang biang mian". Certainly, I know restaurants in Xi'an which have both on their menus. In biang biang mian, the noodles are extremely long. Were yours?

Whatever, I'm sure it was deicious.

The famous biang character (below), is a bit of marketing tool rather than a real Chinese character. It is not listed in any dictionary and is only used in Xi'an.

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It's a bit like the Chinese cousin of aglio e olio. They are both amazing dishes, each requires slightly different prep and ingredients but they both have a similar base - wheat noodles with garlic and chilies cooked in oil. Aglio e olio cooks the garlic and chillies gently in the oil before mixing with the noodles, biang biang noodles (or at least the oil splashed ones) have the hot oil added to the cooked noodles with fresh garlic etc.

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That is not to say there is duck involved. 鸳鸯 (yuān yāng) means mandarin duck, but as they are almost always seen in couples, the term is also used figuratively to mean both an affectionate couple and also this type of two sectioned pot. This is a Sichuan style hot pot. The red soup base is chilli hot while the other is plain (for the chilli wimps!)

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Lunch was SV 30-hour sirloin tip roast from supper last night. We had some of the beef at 27 hours for supper, but thought the remainder chunk (about 3.5 lbs!) would benefit from another 3 hours. It was a little more tender, but still stayed medium.
Made great sandwich with low-carb bread, horseradish mayo and lettuce.

Two traditional Nürnberger sausages, garlic aioli, kraut, pickled onion and mustard with cheese spätzle. Very, very good.The kraut was different from any I’ve ever had – really fresh tasting and just barely pickled.It was more like sharply dressed thin sliced cabbage.

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Making sure perishables are getting used up before leaving for vacation Thursday, took a pomegranate apart and ate about 1/3 of the arils (remainder in fridge to eat the next couple of days), cut up a pineapple and ate a little of that (into the fridge for DH's snacking), and some yogurt.